51 



notiou that some more subtle aid to vision tlian an actromatic 

 would show the hidden artist^ with his plan before him, striving 

 with skilful manipulation to perfect his work." And then, to 

 sum up the results of his investigations, he adds : — " "What is 

 true of the newt is true of every animal and of every plant ; the 

 acorn tends to build itself up again into a woodland giant, such 

 as that from whose twig it fell ; the spore of the humblest 

 lichen reproduces the green or brown incrustation which 

 gave it birth; and, at the other end of the scale of life, 

 the child that resembled neither the paternal nor the maternal 

 side of the house would be regarded as a kind of monster. . . . 

 It is the first great law of reproduction, that the offspring 

 tends to resemble its parent or parents more closely than 

 anything else." * 



But what light does all this beautiful description throw upon 

 the origin of life ? None. Huxley adds, to be sure, that 

 " Science will some day show us how this law is a necessary 

 consequence of the more general laws which govern matter ; 

 but, for the present, more can hardly be said than that it 

 appears to be in harmony with them. We know that the 

 phenomena of vitality are not something apart from other 

 physical phenomena, but one with them ; and matter and force 

 are the two names of the one artist who fashions the living as 

 well as the lifeless." This has a scientific sound, as if the 

 philosopher were enunciating an observed fact ; but in reality 

 it is a theory, originating in Huxley's foregone opinion, and 

 having no logical connexion with his observations. The fact 

 is, his observations tend to a widely different conclusion. They 

 show us the guiding power which that mysterious entity 

 we call life exercises upon matter, moulding it into forms 

 of exquisite beauty, and yet wide diversity; they show us 

 that life cannot be a unit — that is, a thing of one essence and 

 type, emanating from matter; for were it so, its operations 

 upon matter would be uniform, and there would be but one 

 class of organisms in the universe. Or, suppose we admit, 

 with Herbert Spencer, that the life principle is modified to 

 meet the , requirements of its environments ; then the nature 

 of the full-grown animal could never be predicted, as that 

 would depend on the environments which accident, or the 

 deliberate operation of some other power, might entii'cly 

 change. On the contrary, Huxley's investigations prove that 

 there are essentially distinct types of life, though all appear to 

 the scientist to have the same elementary material basis; and 



* Lay Sermons, pp. 261, 262. 



